Family
by LadyMarianne123
Summary: Maggie returns to Fantasy Island and with Roarke's help tries again to clean out the old estate. But they both are soon to learn that family can be as much a curse as a gift - will be re-writing this from scratch and re-posting soon.
1. Chapter 1

Family

"The plane! The plane!" Tattoo's voice rang out over the excited chatter of the island natives. Roarke smiled at his assistant's enthusiastic announcement of the arrival of their guests, an enthusiasm that never seemed to wane. He watched with a smile as the little man ran to catch up with him.

"Hurry, Tattoo! We mustn't keep our guests waiting." They climbed into the car and started for the cove. "It should be a fairly quiet weekend. The fantasies that we will be hosting are reasonably simple and shouldn't require much attention on our part."

"That's good, boss," Tattoo commented with a smile. "I could use a little quiet time."

Roarke agreed silently, still nursing a certain amount of weariness after Ms. Corday's fantasy. Battling Elizabeth for the soul of an innocent woman had taken more energy than he had thought. He climbed out of the car and motioned to the islanders to start the welcoming music as the seaplane floated into place at the dock. But the first guest to exit the plane was the last person he had expected to see.

"Boss! Isn't that Miss Maggie – the lady who was here a few months ago?" Tattoo asked curiously. "She doesn't look too good."

Maggie glared at Roarke's assistant, her excellent hearing picking up his innocent comment. "Gee, thanks, Tattoo. Happy to see you too."

Roarke frowned, ignoring the rest of his new guests. Tattoo, in his outspoken way, had merely pointed out the obvious. The girl looked like she had been in a barroom brawl, sporting a black eye and one arm in a sling; and the way she gingerly picked her way towards her host convinced him there were other bruises that he could not see. "What happened?" he asked quietly.

"Long story – can we talk about it in your office? I'm sure your other guests would like to get unpacked and start on their adventures." Maggie waved off the offer of a drink and started towards the car.

Roarke watched her walk away, then turned back to his new guests with a sigh. "My dear guests, I'm your host, Mr. Roarke. Welcome to Fantasy Island."

-

"So tell me what happened," Roarke requested, settling behind his desk as Maggie dropped onto the nearby sofa. Tattoo took his place beside Roarke's chair.

"Byron and I were trying to contact a woman at the behest of her family. They had concerns for her safety because of stories they had heard about the man she was with. She and her new boyfriend had decided to renovate some old mansion in Wales and had essentially cut all family and friends out of their lives. Her boyfriend was a nut case – I swear he had an obsession with that old black-and-white movie 'The Werewolf'. He even changed his name to Lawrence Talbot – just like the main character in the movie."

"But he was not afflicted with lycanthropy?" Roarke looked at the young woman with concern.

"Not hardly. Byron would have been able to tell if he was a shifter. This guy was just nuts. We made the mistake of trying to get his girlfriend to realize just how crazy he was, without a backup plan. We split up so that one of us could get the girl out of harm's way and the other could run interference. Problem was, the guy was delusional. He really thought he had 'transformed' into a werewolf because of the full moon. Started howling at the moon and attacked me when I tried to sneak his girlfriend off the property. Byron joined the fray almost immediately, but I still got the worst of the fight. I ended up getting an elbow to the eye and a couple of cracked ribs. It could have been worse."

"Is Byron all right?" Roarke asked in concern.

"He's fine – kicking himself for not being there fast enough to protect me, but other than that he's fine. He's attending a family gathering in New Zealand right now. I suspect his father and brothers have dragged him off to pub-crawl for a few days, so he'll be pretty wasted for at least a week."

Roarke smiled. "So you decided to take a vacation?"

"Something like that," Maggie agreed. "I thought about going to the other island, but frankly, your buddy over there really gives me the creeps. So I thought I'd come back here and take another stab at cleaning out my grandfather's house."

"If you can wait a few hours, I can join you," Roarke offered, flipping open the files on his desk. "The current fantasies planned for this weekend can continue without my interference. Tattoo can keep track of them for me."

"I appreciate that offer," Maggie said, rising from the sofa with a wince. "If you really do have the time, I wouldn't mind the company. That place still makes me nervous, and frankly, I'm not in the best shape to catch a trap closing around me in time to get out of the way."

Roarke motioned for her to remain seated. "Then it's settled. We'll make our way to the house as soon as I've seen this weekend's guests settled into their fantasies. Let me suggest you rest here until we go. Tattoo will see to anything you need."

Maggie smiled wearily at the little man as she sank gratefully back onto the sofa. "That would be excellent. Thanks." She tucked her feet under her and stretched out with a relaxed sigh.


	2. Chapter 2

Pt. 2

Roarke smiled politely as his guest raised some questions about his upcoming fantasy. The Giles family had requested a fantasy involving the Swiss Family Robinson storyline. It was a standard, family-type fantasy that always seemed to bring people together – even while it scared some of the participants. Somehow people never seemed to remember that the characters in the story were stranded on a desert island – not at Disneyland. They always seemed so surprised when the fantasy became uncomfortable.

"Do you need me to keep an eye on them, Boss?" Tattoo asked, coming up beside his friend with Chester the chimp beside him. "Or maybe Chester can help?"

Roarke looked down, one eyebrow raised. "I think having Chester help would make this fantasy more complicated than it needs to be." He looked back at the main house with a frown. "I thought you would be with Maggie."

"She fell asleep on the sofa right after you left," Tattoo said with a shrug. "I didn't think she wanted me to hang around and watch her nap."

"Probably not," Roarke agreed, still frowning. He turned back to his guest and motioned towards a car. "Mr. Giles, if you will excuse me, I have another issue to attend to. My associate will escort you to the start of your fantasy." He turned back to the house, leaving Tattoo to explain how the family would begin their vacation.

-

Roarke entered his office quietly, hoping not to awaken his guest. Her bag had been brought from the plane and was propped against the wall beside the door. Maggie was still curled up on his couch, a cushion cradled against her stomach like a stuffed animal. She had removed the sling that had held her injured arm, dropping it to the floor beside the sofa. Her dark hair fell over her face, partially obscuring her bruised features. Roarke smiled slightly. She had a certain childlike innocence in her sleep, something she obviously wasn't comfortable showing when she was awake. He quietly took his seat behind the desk and began to read through some of the fantasy requests that had come that day.

"Fantasy go okay?" Maggie murmured sleepily, opening her eyes and pushing her hair out of her face. She sat up with a groan, her stiff muscles complaining at the movement.

"It went fine," Roarke replied, eyeing her seductively. "How do you feel?"

"Stiff, sore, uncomfortable. Any or all of the above and more. I hate losing a fight – especially when we didn't." She smiled faintly. "So, when do I get to go back to Grandfather's house?"

"Not today," he replied, folding his hands on his desk. "I don't think that would be wise, considering the condition you are in. I think it would be better for you to have a good night's sleep, perhaps even give yourself time to heal."

"I'm bruised, not broken," she protested. "I've handled worse situations."

"No doubt," he agreed solemnly. "But I would prefer not to deal with your injuries simultaneously with your grandfather's traps – at least not right now."

Maggie sighed, then smiled. "I suppose I should argue, but frankly, I could use some down time. Maybe even a nice long hot soak in a tub. Truth be told, I didn't get much sleep last night. I had some really strange dreams."

"What about?" Roarke responded with concern.

"They were about Elizabeth Bathory. So strange – I hadn't thought about her for years; then, just the last few months, I've been dreaming about that scene I experienced on my tenth birthday when I received her Book of Shadows." She looked at Roarke curiously, seeing the sudden shadow that passed over his face. "Problem?"

"A woman recently requested a fantasy which involved spending her birthday in a castle she had been dreaming of for some time." He stared off into space, his eyes distant. "There was a woman in her dream, a noblewoman whom she knew but didn't know."

"Elizabeth?" Maggie asked quietly.

"Yes. She had made a pact with the darkness, a pact that would allow her to inhabit her genetic duplicate on the woman's thirtieth birthday. That woman was Lisa Corday, my guest. Knowing what I did about Elizabeth's pact, I had to save my guest from being caught in her web. And I had to give Elizabeth the chance to save herself from the darkness she had died in."

"Save Elizabeth Bathory?" Maggie sighed in frustration. "Why bother? She showed no such mercy for the young women she murdered in the name of her vanity."

"She wasn't always as she became," Roarke protested.

"You mean she wasn't always a serial killer? Gee, I'm sure that makes her victims feel so much better about being slaughtered." Maggie rose and stretched, wincing at the pain. "Look, I really don't feel like having this argument with you again. Is there somewhere I can bunk down for the night?"

"We have a guest room you can use." He rose and escorted her to the stairs. "Last door on the right – I'll have one of my staff get you anything you need."

Maggie looked up the stairs, then hefted her bag over her shoulder. "Thanks. It should only be for the night. I'll be out of your hair by tomorrow at the latest." She started up the stairs slowly, and then turned with a sigh. "Look, I'm sorry if I'm being really bitchy but lately Byron and I have been dealing with a lot of cold cases involving murdered kids. On our last hunt, the killer's own mother made excuses for her kid, trying to blame the victims for 'pushing' her son to murder them. I guess it's made me a little oversensitive to hearing excuses being made for someone like Elizabeth. On top of being in a bad mood and feeling like I've been run over by a tank…guess I'm not the most understanding guest."

Roarke smiled sadly and reached up to pat her hand. "We are both a little oversensitive today. Go and rest. We can talk in the morning." He watched her silently go up the stairs and turned back to his desk.


	3. Chapter 3

Pt. 3

Maggie tossed her bag on the bed, closed the door behind her and looked around. The room was relatively plain in comparison with what she had seen of the rest of the main house. A door led to an adjoining bath with a deep tub. Soft towels, bath salts and even bubble bath were lined up on the shelf. "Lovely!" she thought with relief. "Just what I need." She immediately started a hot bath, making sure to add the salts to relax her muscles. The sight of her bruised face in the mirror caught her by surprise. Her black eye looked as painful as it felt, but she knew that it would start to heal shortly. The bruises on her ribs were equally ugly, though they didn't hurt as much as the eye did. Breathing, however, was another issue. Every breath sent little waves of pain through her, adding to her fatigue.

A tapping on the bedroom door startled her out of her reverie. "Yes?" she called out, leaning on the closed door.

"Mr. Roarke sent me to see if you needed anything," a sweet voice called out. Maggie opened the door to find a very young native girl standing in the hall, a stack of towels in her arms. She looked barely old enough to be out of school, much less working at a resort. "Do you have enough towels?"

"You can never have too many towels," Maggie replied with a smile, motioning her to enter. "I have to say, though, the bath salts are a nice touch. Your boss is a good host."

The young woman stacked the towels in the bathroom. "I think they may have belonged to Mrs. Roarke. She stayed in this room for a while."

"I wasn't aware he was married." Maggie sat on the edge of the bed and started rummaging through her bag for her nightshirt.

"She died sometime last year," the girl replied quietly. "I never met her. My school was on one of the outlying islands, and I just came to work here last month. They say she was very sick. Is there anything else I can do for you, Miss?"

"No thanks – I'm good." Maggie sighed as the girl slid quietly out of the room, closing the door behind her. *Wonderful! That explains why he's sensitive,* she thought as she started to draw a hot bath. A few minutes (and a few capfuls of bath salts) later, she slid into the tub with a contented sigh. A bubble bath would have been wonderfully decadent; but salts and bubbles didn't mix, and she knew she needed the relaxation more than the decadence.

Twenty minutes later, she had refreshed the hot water at least once and decided to try for bubbles after all. With a towel behind her head, she stretched the length of the tub and sighed in relief. "Better! So much better!" she murmured, closing her eyes in relief. She relaxed for a while longer, then climbed out of the tub, dried off and pulled on Byron's old t-shirt. Her partner's scent wafted gently from the cloth, wrapping her in comfort. She climbed into the bed and was soon sleeping.

-

The room was cold and damp, with the oppressive smell of sweat, blood and fear. Servants walked around quietly, scurrying around the richly dressed woman in the center of the room. She was beautiful, with long red hair flowing down her back in shimmering waves. Her skin was pale, porcelain perfection – at least from a distance. Closer examination showed the first signs of cracks in the perfection, small lines at the eyes and around the mouth. Her cold eyes destroyed any illusion of humanity.

A piercing scream rang through the fading light as a young girl was dragged before the noblewoman, weeping in an unfamiliar tongue. The servants who were gathered around their lady turned and watched with avid interest the horror unfolding in the room. The noblewoman examined the hysterical woman with an eerie sense of detachment. Then angry voices called out from the rear of the room, and suddenly the room was filled with swordsmen, chasing down the terrified servants. The noblewoman never altered her placid expression, despite the sudden change in her circumstances. Her eyes locked on something in the distance and a cold smile spread across her perfect face. She reached for a book on the table beside her with a smile…


	4. Chapter 4

Pt. 4

Maggie sat up with a gasp, looking around the room in confusion. The remnants of the dream still echoed in her head, the sounds and smells still clinging to both her conscious and unconscious mind. She had a fuzzy memory of a voice that sounded like her own, crying out in anger. A whiff of smoke hung in the air.

*Oh crap! What's going on?* she thought, looking around the still-lit room. Thankfully she hadn't set anything on fire – at least not that she could see. Maggie was startled when someone started pounding on the door.

"Maggie? Are you all right?" Roarke's voice called from the hall, the door rattling in its frame as he knocked.

"Hang on, I'm coming!" Maggie called, sliding off the bed and padding over to the door. She cracked it open cautiously, looking at her host from behind the veil of her long hair. "Sorry! Did I get loud?"

"You sounded as though you were in trouble," Roarke said with concern.

"I was having that dream again. Only not quite the same. It was like the next scene in a not quite familiar play. It's way too confusing to talk about now. I'll tell you about it in the morning." She started to close the door, but Roarke's hand was in the way.

"Are you sure?" he asked quietly, worry in his voice.

"Yes, I'm sure," she replied in exasperation. "I've had these dreams for weeks. The worst that's happened is that I set a Paris hotel on fire. Trust me – if there's a problem, you'll be the first to know it." She gently pulled the door loose from his grip and closed it, leaning against it with a sigh. "Well, that was special," she murmured. "Why is the dream changing?" She opened her bag and pulled out her Book of Shadow, a large, old-fashioned ledger filled with creamy blank pages which had been Byron's gift to her in college. Maggie sat on the floor, folding her legs under her in a lotus position, with the book propped in her lap. She opened to a blank page and ran her hand gently over its surface, murmuring a command. A few minutes later, words and pictures started to appear on the page, glowing with a golden light. She ran her fingertip along the page, reading intently.

-

Outside the bedroom door, Roarke leaned against the door. Maggie had assumed she had cried out in her sleep; but in fact, he had felt the power of her dream all the way into his office. Something — or someone — wanted this woman to feel the horror of events from long ago. Perhaps they wanted to wear her down, make her vulnerable to attack. He suspected, however, that all it was doing was making her angry. Considering what happens when she gets angry, this might not bode well for my home,* he thought dryly.


	5. Chapter 5

Pt. 5

The morning dawned on the island as it always did, the land bathed in sunlight, with a light breeze floating over its inhabitants. Roarke sat outside with his coffee, waiting for his young guest to join him. He had knocked on Maggie's door as he came down to breakfast, but had received no answer.

"Good morning, Boss!" Tattoo came and sat beside his employer, a cup of coffee in his hand. "Where is Ms. Maggie?"

"I'm not sure," he replied with a frown. "I expected her to be down by now." He motioned to one of the female house staff. "Please go upstairs and see if Ms. De los Santos is awake."

"No need," Maggie called out, coming around the corner in sweats and a t-shirt. "I've been up for hours. Finally decided if I didn't go out for a run, I would go nuts. So I took off across the beach for a couple of miles to clear the cobwebs."

"Did you get any sleep?" Roarke asked, pouring a cup of coffee for her.

"Not much, but I tend not to sleep much anyway." She pushed the cup away with a frown, reaching instead for the orange juice. "I spent some time looking up some information about the whole Bathory situation as it might have related to my family. That's the only reason I could think of that her crimes seem to resonate with me."

"I didn't hear you in my library," Roarke commented with a frown.

"No, I used my Book. Grandfather taught me … let's just say I can access anything ever written by my family without having to actually touch the book it's written in." She grinned mischievously. "Kind of makes it hard to keep a secret around me. Anyway, I found a historical reference to one of my ancestors being in the service of Elizabeth Bathory's cousin, the King of Hungary. I think that explains the difference in last night's dream. I think I was seeing the scene from my ancestor's point of view."

"Interesting." Roarke's finger tapped on the table reflectively. "Why would you be able to see history from your ancestor's eyes?"

"Grandfather used to say that magic has genetic memory. It explained why each successive generation of our family was able to harness magic more easily than the generation before. He compared it to what trainers call muscle memory, where you do a move so many times that the body just instinctively is able to perform it without thought." She gulped down the cold juice thirstily. "It would also explain why that particular Book of Shadows seemed to trigger memories in me."

"Perhaps so," Roarke agreed. He peered into the girl's face for a moment. "Your bruises seem to be healing quite nicely."

"They usually do," she replied with a shrug. "Not as fast as Byron's; but then, I'm not a shifter. Those guys have healing down to a fine art." She looked back at the house. "So…who do I talk to about breakfast? That run really revved up my appetite."

Roarke smiled and gestured to his staff to bring the food to the table. "I took the liberty of arranging for some items you might find enjoyable. When you are finished, we should continue this discussion…"

"I can talk and eat at the same time." Maggie watched the breakfast plates appear with fascination. "You both are eating too, right? No way I'd be able to finish this much food off by myself."

Tattoo smiled happily and helped himself to a roll. "I'd be more than happy to help."

Roarke sighed, then poured himself more coffee. A stack of letters distracted him while Maggie and Tattoo finished off the morning meal. One letter caught his attention and he looked at Maggie curiously to ask, "Do you know a Tobias de los Santos?"

"My uncle Tomas' son? I haven't seen him since my tenth birthday."

"When his father gave you that book?" Roarke handed her the letter he had been reading. "It seems he wants to visit my island. Specifically, he wishes to visit your grandfather's estate."

"Hmmm…why would he suddenly decide to visit the old house? As far as I know, he wasn't all that interested in the family since that little disaster." She pushed her plate away and stretched in her chair. "We weren't really close even as kids. Sadly, he – like his father – had little to none of the gift, which meant he was all but invisible to my grandfather. I remember he was at my birthday party, but not much more than that. If I were a suspicious person, I'd wonder if it was coincidence that he's suddenly interested in the estate, now that I'm here and having dreams about that event again."

"I don't believe in coincidences," Roarke replied firmly. "Can you stay long enough to be here while he visits?"

"Maybe. Depends on how drunk my partner's family got him. I know his father was planning some major family bonding over mass quantities of food and booze, but not sure how long he was going to stretch out the visit." She tossed the letter back at Roarke with a smile. "Maybe I won't look as if someone tried to use me for a punching bag by then. But I think I need to get into the house before he arrives, just to make sure nothing jumps out at us." She jumped up and started back into the house, leaving Roarke and Tattoo watching her – one with amusement and one with appreciation.


	6. Chapter 6

Pt. 6

Tobias watched his wife pack their bags with a jaundiced eye. She had repacked the same bag at least three times, each time finding some new and expensive item she couldn't possibly travel without. Anna Lee wasn't terribly bright, but her other "assets" more than made up for her lack of intellect. He reached for one of the dozen books his father had collected over the course of his lifetime, a book that spoke in great detail about the spell he was hoping to cast when he arrived on Fantasy Island.

He hadn't seen this particular incarnation of the magical isles, but it probably wasn't much different from the one he remembered from his cousin's tenth birthday, an island full of power channeled through its master, a man named Roarke. He pondered the oddness that both islands would have mages using the same name, but dismissed it after a moment, preferring to concentrate on the plan at hand. Flipping through the pages, he came across a photo his father had taken with a telephoto lens at his cousin's graduation, an event neither of them had been invited to attend. It showed Maggie and some handsome young man standing arm in arm, waving their caps in the air in celebration. In the background he could just make out Maggie's father Eduardo and their grandfather Raul. He examined the photo carefully, wondering idly who the man was and whether he was still in his cousin's life. Not that it mattered. If all went well, he would soon be a power; and his family would be paying for all the humiliations in his life.

"Toby?" Anna Lee stood in front of her moody husband, a pout on her pretty face. "You haven't heard a word I said, have you?"

Tobias looked up at her with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Were you speaking?"

She sighed in exasperation. "Yes! I asked if you thought I should take a fancy dress so we could go out to dinner when we get to the resort!"

Tobias sighed and shook his head in exasperation. "We're not on vacation, Anna. We're going to visit my grandfather's estate and see if he left us anything in his will."

"But wouldn't his lawyer have told us if he had left you anything when he died?" she asked with a frown. "He died a while ago, didn't he?"

"I've explained this to you a dozen times," Tobias retorted, tossing his book aside as he rose from his chair. "The lawyer didn't contact me right away because my cousin never mentioned our side of the family. It's possible he left me some family heirloom that we can sell to pay off our debts before the bookies come looking for me. You wouldn't want them to find me, would you?"

"NO! Of course not! I just was wondering…" her voice trailed off and she backed up a step, dropping her eyes from his face in confusion. "I think I'm finished packing."

"About time," he grumbled, retrieving his book from the floor and packing it in his briefcase. He hefted both the case and the suitcase off the bed and stalked out the door, followed by his now-silent wife. As soon as the door closed, darkness settled in the room, the temperature dropping to an unbearable level. An odd laugh, masculine in tone, filled the room, accompanied by a cacophony of distant screams.


	7. Chapter 7

Pt. 7

Maggie sighed in frustration. "Did he _never_ throw _anything_ away?" she asked, tossing yet another empty box into the large trash container Tattoo had delivered to the hacienda.

"I think your grandfather was what is politely referred to as a pack rat," Roarke replied, idly flipping through a yellowed notebook. He tossed it into the trash atop a pile of old bills he had found on the same shelf.

"The man never met a scrap of paper he didn't want to preserve for posterity," Maggie grumbled. "It makes it nearly impossible to figure out what's important and what isn't."

"Perhaps that was the idea." Roarke glanced down the row of boxes with a sigh. "He might have been hiding his treasures in plain sight."

"'Treasures'?" Maggie snorted in disgust. "I don't see anything worth treasuring. Except…" She pulled a folded page from the midst of a group of receipts. "What's this?"

Roarke reached out and took it from her, unfolding it with a frown. It was yellowed with age, the handwriting faded and elegant. The paper was ragged at the edges, as though it were roughly torn from a book, with odd figures drawn in brownish ink in the corners. "It looks like a translation of a spell he had been working on. Some sort of transference spell."

"Transference?" Maggie's voice took on a strained tone as she took back the page. "I remember this. He taught me this when I was just a kid. I never knew where he got it from or why he was so determined that I learn it. Still don't."

"What did the spell really do?" Roarke asked quietly.

"It was supposed to allow one wizard to transfer power, magic and even life energy to another person, usually another magic user. He told me his father wanted him to learn it so that he could continue the family tradition – keeping himself alive by using the power of family until he could find the 'right' heir to pass his power along to. My great-grandfather was a conniving, evil old man who probably sacrificed goddess only knows how many of his own descendants to keep himself alive until the 'right' one was born, and then expected his child to do the same."

"I never met your great-grandfather." Roarke pulled another book from a box and shook it gently over the table. "But from what Raul said about him, 'conniving' and 'evil' would have been compliments. Yet I have wondered over the years…"

"You've wondered if Grandfather was like his father?" Maggie glanced down at the page with a frown. "I suspect as he got older and his children didn't turn out the way he expected, he did start to remember his father's lessons and take them more to heart. But this page wasn't written by him. I know both his and my dad's handwriting well enough to recognize it. This *is* a man's handwriting, but not theirs."

Roarke reached across the table and took the page back. A chill flowed over him as he read the first line, filling him with mixture of dread and despair. He rose and crumpled the page in his hand, tossing it into the fireplace in disgust. "You don't need this power," he said quietly.

"And yet Grandfather insisted I learn it. Makes you wonder what he knew that we don't." She poked around the stacks a little more and pulled out another book. This one was different from the others they had been looking at. It was bound in leather, with gold-filigree writing on the cover. The pages were heavier than modern paper and yellowed with age. "And here is my missing birthday present – Elizabeth Bathory's grimoire."

Roarke strode across the room quickly. His hand shot out and he snatched the book away from the young woman. "I'll take that."

Maggie held on grimly. "Oh no you won't! That's my birthday gift." She grinned suddenly. "Goddess – I sound like Golom from _Lord of the Rings."_

Roarke didn't return her smile. "It's still dangerous, even after all these years."

"Not to me it's not," she retorted. "I'm older and more experienced now and know what to expect. It can't take me by surprise. Besides, I've always wondered something, and maybe the book can answer my question."

"What is your question?" Roarke asked, releasing the book.

"There was a legend that just after Bathory's husband died, she was visited by a stranger, a dark stranger who might have been responsible for introducing her to some of the more horrifying of the Dark Arts. All the supernatural enthusiasts use to say that it might have been Dracula – the vampire not the Prince – but of course that didn't happen. I've always wondered about who it was if he actually existed. "

Roarke frowned, casting his mind back to that long-ago time. "I remember whispers about that visitor, but I never actually saw him. I remember, though, that it was after those stories started to spread that Elizabeth began to change, to become darker, colder. I could no longer reach her heart." He sighed and sank back onto the sofa. "How strange that I had forgotten that incident."

Maggie shrugged, then cracked open the book, flipping pages carefully as she scanned the faded writing. Suddenly she spied a familiar script. She dropped beside him on the sofa and pointed to a particular page. "Does this handwriting look familiar?"

He squinted at the spidery script for a moment, then stared in shock at his guest. "It's the same writing as the transference spell!"

She sighed and carefully closed the book. "That's what I was afraid you'd say. Maybe Great-Granddad was more of an evil creature than the family knew. I shouldn't be surprised. Anyone who would steal their children's youth and life force would probably be capable of spreading the knowledge of the Dark Arts around wherever he could." Maggie glanced down at her watch. "Wow. Time flies when you're not having fun. It's time for you to get down to the pier. My cousin Tobias will be arriving soon."

Roarke rose from his seat with a sigh. "I'm still not comfortable bringing him and his wife here to the estate. I think it would be better if they stayed at the resort."

Maggie shrugged. "Probably would be, but he wants to look around the house and see what Grandfather might have left him. Last I heard, he was in debt to some loan sharks; so I think he's hoping to find something here to help his finances, whether it was left to him or not. As long as it's not magic-related, I don't care what he takes."

"As you wish," Roarke replied, stepping out into the garden and down the path toward the car.

Maggie watched him go without expression, then rose and fished the page out of the fireplace. She smoothed it open, leaning over the table so that her shadow fell across the paper. "So, what exactly am I facing?" she asked the air behind her.

"A choice," a voice whispered, the sound echoing through the room. "A choice between light and dark, life and death."

"Oh, is that all?" she replied sarcastically.


End file.
